On another note, none of us here are sponsored by Microsoft, neither is our website. I used to be a Microsoft MVP but I left a couple of years back when it interfered with working on this website. All of the reviews we post are reviewed with no bias what so ever, if we were bias towards the products we review then our site would have no professional backbone and we would end up like any other 2 bit website. Each reviewer has their own opinion on what is reviewed, and that is how any site should be.

Next up a few of you have been e-mailing in asking why certain news stories that you have sent in to us have not been posted on our site, well the simple reason is that if news items such as old longhorn shots are sent to us that we know are fake, we don't give them news space. We also can't advertise other websites on our main site, just on our link pages except under certain circumstances like when 50+ neowin readers e-mailed us asking why their website was down again. Please remember that our website is not associated with theirs so it is none of our business whether they are down or not and we get enough e-mail to sort through as it is.

Finally - about our server. A lot of people seem to assume that because we are the only Microsoft news site around that posts all of their news, that we have the kind of bandwidth that sites like SlashDot have. We wish we did, but we don't. We pay to keep the site running and improving out of our own pockets, and after 5 years it is still a hobby for all of us who remain here. Both Alex and I were even planning to keep working on the site while doing real jobs and going to university, we hope this gives you some idea about how much we put into this site day after day and that after 5 years we are still going strong with just a few days downtime in all those years, how many other sites can say that?

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We would like to point out that our comment system is for discussion and comments on news that we post, not for snide comments about members or for everyone to swear in. Everyone is allowed their own opinions in the comments no matter where they come from or what OS they use, but swearing and user abuse will not be tolerated.

Upcoming reviews:

Games: Age of Mythology, Rise of Nations (Preview Build), Rallisport Challenge
Xbox: Lord of the Rings, Blinx, Fifa 2003, Whacked!, Xbox Live! US & Europe, Serious Sam